At gamescom 2026, I had my third pre-release slice of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. During last year's gamescom, I watched as developers walked through the Pinkwater Station demo; that same level was subsequently available to play ahead of the public Closed Beta test, and that's when I first went hands-on with the upcoming third-person action RPG by Owlcat Games. Gamescom 2026's appointment was a mix: I played a new level while Creative Director Alexander Mishulin (whom I had previously interviewed shortly after the game's announcement) explained what I was seeing on screen and later answered my questions. This meaty new […]

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During this year's gamescom, I had the opportunity to try out all sorts of games, ranging from new entries in established series like Final Fantasy VII Revelation, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, remakes like Persona 4 Revival and brand new IPs, such as Guns of Eschaton and Stupid Never Dies. Checking out these new IPs often proves to be more interesting than playing sequels that don't take risks, as developers often take more creative risks with these games. Sword Panda Games' Sword Sage: Awakening was among the new IPs I checked out during this year's event. Set for […]

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At BlizzCon 2026, Blizzard Entertainment made a surprise announcement of Diablo V, a new installment in the hack-and-slash action RPG franchise. The new game will be released in Spring 2029 and will place players in a Sanctuary that has already fallen to Diablo, giving it an entirely different vibe from what fans are used to. For now, that's all we got, but a panel titled Diablo V: Forging the Next Era is scheduled for later today, where the developers will unveil their overarching vision. It's a long lead time, that's for sure. Looking back, though, if there are no delays, […]

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Independent developer Raw Power Games came to gamescom 2026 with the thing everyone had been waiting for since the reveal of Chronicles: Medieval - an uncut battle, played live, start to finish. The Copenhagen studio has around 100 people building its debut title, and Chronicles Medieval has been described in a dozen different ways over the past year. The one the team settled on for this presentation is a hybrid action-strategy RPG set in the Middle Ages. Lead Producer Sam Millen and Senior Game Designer Gareth Bourn spent the session demonstrating what that actually means, with the caveat that everything shown […]

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At gamescom 2026, following a detailed CONTROL Resonant presentation hosted by Remedy, I had the opportunity to speak with Senior Level Designer Arhi Makkonen in a one-on-one interview. The conversation covered more ground than the presentation had time for, and it started with the obvious question from my end: why move CONTROL into a different genre at all, given its success? Makkonen's answer was that staying fresh was the point. The first game was a surprising choice in its own right as a Metroidvania-inspired game, and the sequel's shift to an action RPG stems from a desire to give players […]

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Remedy brought a substantial chunk of CONTROL Resonant to gamescom 2026 and picked a zone nobody had seen before to show it off. With the game now just a couple of weeks from release, this was less of a teaser than a proper walkthrough of how the whole thing actually functions, and preceded our one-on-one interview with Senior Level Designer Arhi Makkonen. The build that we were shown was running on PC and roughly three weeks old, which Remedy flagged as still work in progress even at this stage, with final bug fixes and the final audio mix still to […]

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It's been seven years since former BioWare veteran James Ohlen founded Archetype Entertainment in Austin, Texas, later revealing the studio's debut game as EXODUS. Ohlen has since left Archetype for personal reasons, but the hype for EXODUS remains high, especially among Mass Effect fans. Not only is the inspiration crystal-clear, but Archetype also hired the acclaimed writer of the original trilogy, Drew Karpyshyn, to create the game's narrative. Besides, the whole studio worked hard on the setting, even going so far as to get Peter F. Hamilton to publish two novels and to prepare a tabletop RPG handbook and other […]

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Oh, Dragon's Dogma 2. I had such hopes for that game after being thoroughly impressed with the original Dark Arisen, which led me to pine long years for a sequel. When CAPCOM finally announced it, I was overjoyed, to say the least, but the final game turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, not just for me but for many gamers. Sure, it was still fun and rightfully earned an 8/10 score in my review, but it could have been so much more. Instead, it looked like the developers were merely content with making it more like Dragon's […]

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Over the last few years, hearing about a brand new studio created by decorated industry veterans behind award-winning titles has become almost a mainstay in gaming news coverage. How many times have we read a press release that began "from AAA veterans with long careers at BioWare, Bungie, Epic, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Bethesda", et cetera, et cetera? So many developers chose to chart their own path after shipping one or more big titles, either due to creative differences with management, a desire to take their career into their own hands, or a combination of the two. The thing is, most of […]

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Both frustrating and intriguing all the same, Mortal Shell II vastly improves on the original title with a world filled with secret dungeons about while routinely kicking the player's teeth in without mercy

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Independent US developer ProbablyMonsters (which I interviewed earlier this year) today announced the release date and pricing details for Crimson Moon. The Gothic High Renaissance action-adventure RPG, originally unveiled earlier this year, is launching very soon, on September 1, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X, priced at $19.99. Set in the besieged city of Gildenarch, Crimson Moon casts players as Nephilim — half-human, half-angel warriors bound to a dark prophecy — battling demons, vampires, undead gods, and the spreading Hellgrowth as they reclaim the city, district by district. Built around intense, replayable missions, the game blends deliberate melee combat, celestial […]

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Polish developer Rebel Wolves has revealed today that their debut game, the action RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker, is officially gold. That means the physical disc is being printed, though of course, in this day and age, the studio will continue to work on day-one patches and the like up to the launch date of September 3. I suppose this saying will have to be updated if Sony's planned end of PlayStation disc sales from January 2028 goes ahead. Anyway, the gold status effectively confirms there will be no delays. The studio worked quite swiftly on its debut game; Rebel […]

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As a new studio founded by ex-Witcher Alumni, Rebel Wolves and Bandai Namco allowed us an intimate four hours with the studio’s inaugural title: The Blood of Dawnwalker. While players may have been initially concerned about being rushed with the story’s thirty-day limit, our experience proved that there’s more than enough content here to enjoy the adventure at your own pace. In The Blood of Dawnwalker, players take on the role of Coen, a perfectly normal human male with a single goal: to save his family from the clutches of an ancient vampire lord named Brencis. Our play session saw […]

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Last week, IO Interactive announced that it was forced to cut some of its staff after Xbox abandoned funding for the Project Fantasy IP, first revealed over three years ago. Today, the developer has confirmed that it regained complete control of the intellectual property and the project, which it still wants to fund out of its own pockets. However, the downside is that the Istanbul studio, which opened in March 2023, will have to shutter. Following the end of our external finance partnership on Project Fantasy, IOI has regained full ownership of the project and our IP. We will continue to develop and […]

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Today, publisher Perp Games and South Korean developer Project Cloud Games announced the release date of the Soulslike game The Relic: First Guardian. The game, previously planned for a 2025 launch, is now set to be available from July 31 on PC (Steam) and PlayStation 5, with ports for Xbox Series S and X and Nintendo Switch 2 coming later in the Summer. PS5 will also get an exclusive retail version, though it'll only be available on September 4. The game takes place in Arsiltus, a once-peaceful world now overrun by a creeping blight that players must push back as […]

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Last week, independent developer Crate Entertainment finally set a concrete launch date for Grim Dawn: Fangs of Asterkarn (the third and final expansion for the hack-and-slash action RPG): July 23 for PC via Steam, GOG, and Humble Store. The previous expansion, Forgotten Gods, was released in March 2019. In the meantime, the small studio released a fairly successful city builder, Farthest Frontier, and began working on new projects. Even so, they went back to Grim Dawn, a game that sold over 10 million units between the base game and the expansions. In an email interview with Crate Entertainment Production Director […]

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With the delay of the Fable reboot to February 2027, The Blood of Dawnwalker is undoubtedly the most anticipated Western-made roleplaying game due in 2026. Despite being a new intellectual property, the debut game from Polish developer Rebel Wolves benefits from a core development team that worked in key roles on CD Projekt RED's masterpiece, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Indeed, the similarities with the award-winning open world RPG are many, but Rebel Wolves also introduced many features and twists that make it arguably even more interesting, at least on paper. Release Date, Platforms, Pricing The foundation of Rebel Wolves was announced […]

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Today, independent developer Crate Entertainment re-emerged to announce the final launch date of Grim Dawn: Fangs of Asterkarn, the biggest expansion yet for the hack-and-slash action RPG originally launched in 2016. It will be available on July 23, 2026 on PC via Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store, but there's no mention of the Xbox One version, which was previously supposed to debut simultaneously. Fangs of Asterkarn was originally announced in August 2023 for a 2024 launch. Clearly, the expansion's development took much longer than planned, but there's a good reason. The development team boasts that the expansion is the […]

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The upcoming third-person action RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker is now just over three months away from its launch date, and developer Rebel Wolves is already marketing the game through a Game Informer cover story. The magazine went to Warsaw, Poland, to speak with a few key developers from the team, most of whom previously worked on The Witcher III: Wild Hunt at CD Projekt RED. One of the game's distinguishing features is the dual nature of protagonist Coen, who is the titular Dawnwalker, a rare breed of vampire that, after his turning, can still walk in the sunlight during […]

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